


this is a torch song

by kyrilu



Series: Heart's a Mess [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/F, Kidnapping, Romance, Stream of Consciousness, Torture, blackpepper - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know you’ve read it,” Natasha says in a low voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is a torch song

_I know you...I know you’re lonely._

#

She had told Tony it was a date, but it wasn’t, not really. They chat over pesto pasta and garlic bread, trading anecdotes about the current madness in their lives. Tasha doesn’t smile much, but the corners of her mouth pull up as she talks about Clint and Phil, about the insubordinate stubbornness (“ _Sass_ , I think that’s what Coulson called it once...”) that the former constantly displayed.

Natasha has a nice almost-smile, Pepper thinks, and she breaks off a piece of the garlic bread loaf and hands it to Natasha, then breaks a piece for herself.

“You want to go someplace afterwards?” Pepper offers. “Maybe catch a movie, or try that new dessert place across the street?”

“It’s too late for a movie, I think,” Natasha says. “And I think that store closed an hour ago.” She pauses. “Do you want to go check out my place? You’ve never been.”

“No,” Pepper says, “I haven’t.”

She gestures to the waiter and rings up the bill -- Tony’s paying, of course. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go.”

The New York night air is pleasantly warm as Natasha hails a taxi. They’d taken Tony’s limousine to the restaurant, but Pepper had sent Happy home -- she’s rather sympathetic towards him, and tries to cut him a break whenever he can. Because, well -- he has to deal with being Tony’s driver. She gets it.

Her heels click against the pavement, and she steps across the sidewalk squares, watching Natasha disappear into the taxi. She follows, blinking at the contrast of the relatively dim streetlight-lit city transforming into a well-lit cab. The seat belt snaps into place after she clicks it in.

“Tony’s in New Mexico,” she says.

“That’s where he’s at?” Natasha looks taken aback. “I imagined him in a far off beach somewhere. Or inside a giant donut again. One or the other.”

Pepper laughs. “I doubt he’ll do the same thing again as last time. Tony likes showing off his variety. He’d probably go for doing loops around the London Eye next.”

Natasha smiles.

The cab pulls up next to an ordinary apartment building, a cozy place tucked next to a coffee house and a burger shop. It’s low-key enough for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to stay incognito in, but Pepper wonders why the department would give a rogue element like Natasha so much freedom.

She’s read the files. Tony’s hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D. too many times to keep track, dumping a load of information into a file named _SUPER SECRET SHINY GOVERNMENT INFO._ Previously titled _YOU’RE A DUMBASS FURY_ until Pepper told Tony off for being so needlessly infuriating.

But anyways.

Pepper realizes she’s staring, surprised at the simplicity of the apartment. Because it’s small, it’s sweet, and somehow it _fits_ Natasha perfectly.

(Maybe it has to do with the dash of faded scarlet paint that echoes the shade of Natasha’s hair. Or maybe it has to do with the unassuming air of the place, the way it’s tucked into a corner. Secretive.) 

Natasha takes notice of Pepper’s expression. “Thought I was going to whisk you away to a government headquarters, Potts?”

“Kind of,” Pepper admits. “But this is nice. Quiet, in a peaceful way.”

“They give me my freedoms,” says Natasha, pulling out a key and opening a door. “But there are eyes everywhere, nevertheless,” and she gives the apartment hall camera a half-wave.

Pepper glances at the camera, but Natasha just ushers her inside, gesturing towards a couch. She sits, noting the bare walls, the unoccupied mantle, the bland decor. This is a temporary home, or maybe Natasha’s not used to having a permanent one, because the apartment lacks personality or even traces of life.

“Would you like something to drink?” Natasha says, jolting her out of her thoughts.

“Tea, please, if you have any.”

Natasha nods and disappears into a doorway, her movements smooth and lithe as a cat. Pepper likes her grace, the way her hips and her legs slip into the shadows.

Of course. This is the woman who knocked Happy down, easy as anything, hair streaming behind her like fire.

Natalie Rushman always had ways of surprising her, even before she knew.

Pepper shakes the thought away, feeling ridiculous, because being this preoccupied with one person shouldn’t be healthy. It’s just a little, just an edge of curiosity about how it’d feel like to twine an around around the Black Widow and see how much red matches her file.

“Here. It’s chamomile; I hope you don’t mind.”

Pepper blinks, and accepts the mug. “Thank you. That’s fine.”

Natasha’s holding her own mug, a simmering black coffee that smells dark and bitter. The scent is relaxing for Pepper: it’s the smell of her childhood home, her father’s home brew; the smell of the cafe she frequented during her college years; the smell of work, sitting and typing away at her computer with Natalie ( _Natasha_ ) sitting at her side, drinking coffee.

They don’t talk. The TV’s on in the background -- who turned it on -- Natasha? Pepper? It’s just that they’re used to the noise of Stark Tower, and there needs to be something to fill in the silence. They quietly sip their respective drinks.

The chamomile is warm and heavy in Pepper’s mouth and she can feel her eyelids drooping. There is coffee and tea in the air, and she’s leaning back against Natasha’s couch, lost in a sleepy haze.

She pulls herself into a sitting position, and one of her hands reach out, maybe to brush a strand of hair out of Natasha’s face.

“I know you’ve read it,” Natasha says in a low voice. She puts her mug down, and she presses Pepper’s hand away, gently folding fingers back against Pepper’s lap.

“Tasha--”

“It’s late, Potts. I can tell you’re tired. Just finish your drink.”

“Natasha.”

“No, Potts.”

Minutes pass. Pepper’s drifting, drifting to sleep, and she feels her tea being pried away from her fingers.

Hears a soft voice saying, “Oh, Virginia Potts.”

#

Pepper wakes up in the morning sunlight. There’s a burgundy blanket stretched on top of her, the fabric shifting against her skin, and Natasha is nowhere to be seen.

Her high heels lie on the ground, one on its side, and Pepper rights it automatically. Her head aches: the bun in her hair has been digging into a pillow, so she slips the pins out, tucking them into her blouse breast pocket.

Her hair tumbles down onto her shoulders, loose and light, and a high-pitched whistle blares from the next room over, the kitchen.

Pepper looks, and Natasha’s in the doorway, watching her with narrowed eyes that almost seem to be smiling.

“Good morning,” Natasha says. “That’s the kettle. For your tea. I found green tea that you might like -- something non-drowsy, for a change.” Without another word, Natasha sweeps back inside the kitchen, looking quite a home in a tank top and a pair of sweats, the muscled curves of her arm clearly visible.

This is Pepper _looking_ again, and she brushes it off, resigning herself to a contented wait.

Natasha emerges a few moments later with muffins and two steaming mugs. Pepper thanks her cheerily and begins to enjoy the breakfast.

It’s not a date, but it’s close enough.

“Natasha,” she starts abruptly. “Yesterday, you were -- well, you were humming. I didn’t recognize the song, and you don’t usually sing or anything, so I’m wondering...what song was it?”

Natasha’s vulnerable in one second. She says, “A Russian lullaby,” with her accent creeping in, and Natasha is the _Black Widow_ , the woman in black drenching the woman inside the suit in red.

She murmurs something, maybe Russian, with an exasperated twist of her lips, and the only thing that Pepper catches is her name.

#

Natasha sometimes comes back from her missions with a look in her eyes that Pepper associated with the fatality count on her mission files. The count of corpses. There’s still bodies, even working on the good guys’ side. And...it’s S.H.I.E.L.D. They hired an assassin into their ranks, and who’s to say that they can’t use her?

Those days, those bad days, Pepper gives her space. She has Dummy serve Natasha cup after cup of coffee, and maybe Natasha will be the one seeking Pepper out while they sit by Stark Tower’s lounge window and talk and smile about meaningless things.

There’s a day when Natasha’s file is bleeding, the red toll so scarlet that Pepper thinks its leaking onto her fingers. And that’s the day she wipes a smudge of blood off Tasha’s cheeks and looks into her blue eyes instead, thinking so hard: _You are forgiven. Completely and utterly forgiven._

Natasha moves her head away, rejects Pepper’s proffered coffee, and averts her eyes. The blue is gone.

The only thing that Pepper can see is red red hair, turning away and leaving her.

# 

Then: she’s taken.

 _Just like Tony_ , she thinks. Just like Tony, she’s someone kidnapped, someone trapped, handcuffs digging into her wrists and tearing into skin.

A blindfold is drawn tightly across her eyes and someone snaps for her tell them entrance codes, passwords, access points. Stark Industries intel. S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets.

“No,” Natasha says, and a hand slaps her face, rough and coarse.

Again. More demands. Barked words.

She remembers Tony, who didn’t give in, who hated hated hated Stane’s betrayal, and it feels a little like that because there’s that whisper in her mind that blames that spider web for ensnaring her into this mess, for tying her into the grander scheme of things--

Dying her red.

Pepper grits her teeth and says no again.

#

The pain spreads.

_Stop--_

Bruises raw and purple and red.

Red like _her_ hair.

Wounds stinging like poison.

_is this her indirect bite--_

The smell of blood.

Think: coffee and chamomile. Remember Tony remember the tower and Jarvis’ dry sarcastic voice quipping at Tony and Dummy being a dummy; remember those blank walls and bare mantles and dusty window sills.

Red. Like her hair and her hair and that stained ledger.

 _Sorry_ , she breathes, but she’s really saying

i forgive you it’s okay

#

Natasha is coffee and chamomile, and Pepper is Pepper, and the blood and the sweat and the tears are salt salt salt, but Natasha finds her in the end (of course she does) and wipes it all away.

There’s a brush of lips on hers, and Pepper laughs against the kiss, shaky, and says, “Tasha, you idiot, you silly stupid idiot.”

Natasha holds onto her tightly, and mouths a Russian lullaby into her ear.

#

  
_I think you need someone to want you. Well, I do want you. So be brave and want me back!_   


\-- _Skins_ , 3x06.

**Author's Note:**

> So another fic is done in this 'verse. :) The next part in this series has changed -- so far, it's Loki/Tony mainly, from Loki's POV directly after 'our jagged truths', with Jane & Tony friendship as mentioned. SO MORE FROSTIRON FOR YOU GUYS OKAY? :P
> 
> In unrelated news, I am also working on a Bruce/Clint/Natasha fic. Blackhulkeye, everyone!


End file.
